Dating Makes Perfect - Pintip Dunn Page 0,20

sisters might advise you not to bring up another guy when you’re with me. But otherwise, you were average.” The pen slashes into the paper so violently that it rips. “B-minus.”

I bristle. “B-minus? I think I deserve at least a B-plus, since I brought the decorations—”

“This date has been thirty minutes long,” he interrupts. “You can go now.” His tone clearly implies that he can’t tolerate one more moment of my company. I could say the same thing.

“I hope I don’t see you later,” I snarl as I hop out of the car.

He raises his eyebrows. “Have a terrible day.”

“Bad-bye,” I say childishly. I can’t help it. Being with him brings out the toddler in me. “Because you don’t deserve a goodbye.”

His lower lip trembles, as though he might laugh. At me or with me. I don’t wait to see which.

Instead, I slam the car door and run inside my house.

Chapter Nine

I lean back against the heavy oak door, breathing hard. My heart’s racing a mile a minute, and my brain’s doing its best to catch up.

I haven’t been this flustered after an interaction with Mat since…well, ever, really. But we also haven’t actually talked for four years. Sniped? For sure. Snarked? Most definitely. But the actual content of our conversations wouldn’t fill an earbud. I’ve never even asked how he’s adjusted to life without his mom.

Our fake-dating changes all that. Instead of insulting each other and walking away, we’ll now be forced to spend long entire minutes together. What will we even discuss? I can’t imagine. Like it or not, we’ll have to dip below the surface. In that process, we might accidentally get to know each other—as the people we are today, not the kids we used to be.

Weird.

I’m not naive enough to think that he’s the same guy who dove in front of me during a particularly creepy scene of The Ring, as though he might be able to protect me from what was on the screen. At the same time, I don’t know whom to expect, either.

And that, maybe, is what’s freaking me out most of all.

Puffing out a breath, I take off my shoes and lay them in the shelves that my parents had custom-built for the front hall.

Underneath my boots, my socks don’t match—one is yellow patterned with bright green pickles, while the other is orange and purple striped. But that’s okay, ’cause there’s no one here to see them. Papa’s still at work. No doubt Mama’s on her way home from St. Louis, after dropping the twins off at college.

It’s just me here. Alone. Like I have been most nights for the last seven months.

I scan our great room, with the deep green leather sofas and the nearly black mahogany end tables. A chandelier hangs from the two-story ceiling, sleek sheets of wood arranged in rippling layers. The room is modern. Immaculate. There’s not an empty cup to be seen.

It’s as though last night’s party never happened. As though Mat and I didn’t bicker over egg rolls. As though my sisters never came home for a visit.

For all the evidence left behind, the whole night could’ve been a figment of my imagination. Ridiculous, I know. And yet, I shudder, feeling lonelier than ever.

Desperate, I grab my phone and video call my sisters. Ari, specifically, because she’s first in my contact list.

She picks up in approximately two seconds, and a close-up of her face appears on my screen. I can see the pores on her otherwise perfect nose.

“Winnie!” she screeches. Conversation buzzes behind her, but her face blocks every inch of the background. “I’ve been counting the seconds until you called. Tell me. How was the tour? Your ride home with Mat? Was Taran just scrumptious? How many times did Mat’s delicious eyebrow go up? Tell me everything, and don’t you dare skimp on the details.”

My lips twitch. Calling my sisters was the right move. I can always depend on them to make me feel better. “Oh, Ari, he was the worst. First, he told Taran that we had seen each other naked—”

Ari’s face suddenly falls away, as though the phone’s been knocked out of her hand. I see a blur of movement, and then the screen focuses on streams of pink ribbons. Plastic silver crowns. Bowls of candy gummies that are shaped like…penises? What?

Muffled laughter rings through the phone.

“Two hours, people,” an authoritative voice says. “Our bride-to-be arrives in two hours.”

“A little help with the streamers, please,” a second voice calls.

“Stop eating